


Nothing Scares Me Anymore

by NotoriousReign



Category: X-Factor (Comics)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-22
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-03-31 15:47:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3983782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotoriousReign/pseuds/NotoriousReign
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I love Jamie Madrox/Layla Miller. And those two love each other, so hey that helps. Whether they're goofing around on the farm, whether the visions are changing and scaring each other, at least they're together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Piggy-Back

**Author's Note:**

> Basically where I'll be keeping my drabbles for them. Might end up getting a bit longer, but they'll be moments they share together that I'd like to think should and could happen, so this isn't a big chapter fic. Might also end up getting... inappropriate later on, so I'll change the rating when they do. Enjoy!

"Jamie." 

"What?" 

"I have a question to pose for you. And don't think I already know the answer, because I don't." 

That made him smile at the kitchen sink. "Okay, shoot." 

"What if... when you give me a piggy-back ride..." 

" _When_?" 

" _When_ you do, yes. What if when you give me a piggy-back ride, if you bumped into things would another version of me appear? Since you'd be holding me." 

Jamie stopped what he was doing with the dishes, shut off the tap, and had to actually genuinely think about it. Layla perked up from her spot, happy to have gotten his mind turning as she continued. 

"I've seen your duplicates recreate weapons. Could you do that with someone you're holding?" 

"I don't think so." He dried his hands and walked towards her, but then he turned around again, nodding. "But we can still test it out." 

With an uncommon squeal coming from her (although they seemed more common these days) she jumped on his back. Ten minutes, twelve duplicates, and the two of them lying in a heap laughing on the ground together later, they discovered that no he could not produce new versions of people he was holding. When Layla recount the story later she swore tooth and nail the experiment had been necessary and worth it. 


	2. Toys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kids throw things right? And it usually hurts.

"Oh no. Jamie, what if--" 

They got their answer when Joanna Madrox threw her small but hard wooden toy in the middle of a diaper change, hitting it square in the middle of Jamie's concentrated forehead. He sighed in annoyance as a sheepish duplicate appeared next to him. Layla tried to stifle a laugh, biting her lip, while the duplicate clapped his exasperated Prime on the shoulder. 

"Get ready for months of that." 


	3. Night Terrors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Layla has nightmares about her time in the future. She's grown up as a girl of different worlds, always trying to swallow her emotions to seem stoic. But she forgets that she's married to somebody who has just as many haunted memories as she does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dialling it down, making it a bit more morose. I saw how Layla mentioned she has night terrors to Logan in the issue after Jamie died and I mean shit that's gotta come up with your HUSBAND at one point. Anyways, still short and sweet, enjoy.

Sometimes she has the nightmare with the claws. Giant hands stretch out and try to snatch at her and then she wakes up into another dream and those hands become her own; they're deformed, with her skin peeling away. But she's not bleeding, no, although it hurts as much as if she were. Spikes cascade out of her arms and a man in a mask appears with the needle, ready to tattoo more "M"s all over her body.

When she’s fully awake she puts makeup on her arms and face to cover up the tiny scratches she’d accidentally done to herself while she slept, before Jamie would wake up, but she knows he still knows. He’s not an idiot.

He also knows that it’s hard for her to open up, about her parents suddenly disappearing and stranding her in an alternate timeline where they never existed, about her time in the future, about anything.

Still, the mutant camps caused most of the nightmares, if not all. The claws would bleed out, appearing on the masked men's fingers, then those fingers would touch her. Seductively and then violently. Her head would be shaved again and sometimes the needle _did_ reach her body, relentlessly stinging her over and over. The tattoos seeped into her skin, and anybody who says you can't feel pain in dreams has obviously never been through what she had been through. 

One night, when she forgot to hide it within herself, when her skin stings from the memories of the long hours in the camp, Jamie turns on the lamp next to him and eyes how she clenches white fists over bunches of sheets, he eyes her tear-stained cheeks, and then he slowly lies back.

Layla always thought her night terrors had passed. But they were still a haunting part of her life, an itch she would never get rid of.

“It’s hard to shake.”

She blinks, not hearing him right. She’s drenched in sweat, and it prompts Jamie to stand and walk around the bed, opening a window. The breeze that wafts in sends chills up her spine, but it starts to soothe her nerves.

“No matter how much time passes they still come back to you.”

“What does?”

“The memories. The ones where people tried so hard to hurt and break you for being different.”

He'd pulled their blanket back and when he lay down beside her again he didn’t bother covering up again. He wanted her to feel light and cool, not as stifled as when she had her nightmare.

Of course she had a lot of them. Of course he noticed. And of course it got worse with her pregnancy.

Layla turned on her side and her big insightful blue eyes watched him curiously, her heart steadying. Jamie just stared blankly up at the crack in the ceiling.

“I keep on having dreams of when I was still a kid at Xavier’s. You think it’d be easy to forget about the virus?”

It took her a second to understand what he meant and she had a vague vision of them having this conversation in completely different circumstances, both of them about to die with their secrets.

She liked this much better.

“Remember when you found me after we defeated Tryp?”

“You weren’t really doing anything.” She remembered. She was much younger, but she remembered. It was hazier than the camps, but she had the images of who would later become her husband just sitting in his old room in the X-Factor building in New York after one of his duplicates blew up the building. He hadn’t moved, but when he glanced at her in the doorway she saw a world of anguish in his eyes before he told her to give him some privacy. “I couldn’t comfort you then.”

“Yeah, it would’ve been weird.” He paused, musing. “It’s still weird.”

She let out a sharp laugh, shoving his side with the heel of her palm. Her voice didn’t shake and the teasing and sly tone was slowly drifting away. When Jamie flashed her a sleepy smile and she tried to hide hers, she rested that same hand on his chest and let him pull her close.

The anxiety and the images from the nightmare faded. Even with the warmth exuding from Jamie’s body, so close to her under the dim lamplight, it didn't make her as hot or claustrophobic as other nights.

But another dream (and not a good one) would still come back. None of them ever really went away.

“I get it, you think that it’s embarrassing. Just know that… you don’t need to be... _embarrassed_... with me.”

“Next you’re gonna say 'you can always talk to me Layla'.” She rolled her eyes, but sleep was starting to creep in and he could tell that she was barely trying with the teasing.

“My body was deteriorating… when I got the virus. Inside and outside. And it wasn’t happening slowly either, like with cancer.”

“Wasn’t it one of your dupes?”

“I still felt it. I always feel it.”

A lost tone had come over his voice. Layla snuggled in close and suddenly understood how he felt earlier. She wanted him to forget, but she didn’t pity or baby him.

“Okay. I won’t hide from you anymore.”

She stopped covering up the scratches and while the nightmares never fully went away, they weren’t as bad as before. They both didn’t need to say it, and the circumstances had changed so oddly, but they had somebody to talk to.

And it was nice and welcoming. They never really knew the feeling until now.


End file.
